PRO FOOTBALL; Remade Modell Basks In His Second Life

The first, as the owner of the Cleveland Browns, lasted 35 years. He became a dominant personality in the National Football League, negotiated network TV deals, reveled in not being in any business but football and palled around with Vince Lombardi and Pete Rozelle. His team won the 1964 N.F.L. championship, but never a Super Bowl.

That life ended, by his own hand, when he took his debt-riddled Browns to Baltimore in 1996 and turned them into the Ravens. He has never returned to Cleveland, where he expects resentment of him to last as long as the animosity toward Walter O'Malley, who moved the Dodgers from Brooklyn 43 years ago.

Modell, 75, has remade his life in Baltimore. He is as cheerful and loquacious as ever and has plunged into an active social life in Baltimore with his wife, Patricia.

But the impact of leaving Cleveland still radiates, with occasional agony. When the Hall of Fame Browns place-kicker Lou Groza died last year, Modell said he could not bring himself to attend the funeral; instead, he spoke to Groza's widow, Jackie, by telephone.

''Lou was my first friend in Cleveland,'' he said. ''When he came out of retirement, I'd shag his kicks for him at Berea High School. Not going to his funeral was painful.''

But for the most part, turning the Browns into the Ravens has been a joy. Thanks to his sweetheart lease at PSINet Stadium, he has the cash to lavish on players that he never had before. Now those players have taken Modell to within one victory of playing in the Super Bowl.

If the Ravens beat the Oakland Raiders on Sunday to win the American Football Conference title, they will face the Giants or the Minnesota Vikings, who will meet to decide the N.F.C. championship.

Not surprisingly, the prospect of meeting the Giants in Tampa Bay on Jan. 28 made Modell grasp for a funny line. No, not the one he borrowed years ago from George Burns, one that goes, ''At my age, I don't buy green bananas.''

Heck, Modell's got plenty of them. Once, to keep himself amused when a heart attack put him in an intensive care unit for 17 days, he numbered all his jokes to shorten the time to make himself chuckle.

This one he told the other day to Wellington Mara, the 84-year-old co-owner of the Giants.

''If we both make it,'' he suggested to his dearest friend in the N.F.L., ''let's be honorary captains and go out in our wheelchairs.''

Mara said today, ''I told him, 'Speak for yourself.' ''

He added: ''I think he's the same as he always was. He's still very impulsive and emotional. He hasn't changed and neither have his jokes.''

Modell's team is a defensive behemoth, having set the record for surrendering the fewest points, 165, in a 16-game season. The defense is led by Ray Lewis, the middle linebacker. ''My teams have played against Joe Schmidt, Ray Nitschke,'' Modell said. ''Ray's the best ever.''

Modell testified at a bond hearing for Lewis, when the linebacker was being held on murder charges in two stabbing deaths during a post-Super Bowl party last January. The murder charges were eventually dropped.

''Let me tell you about Ray Lewis,'' Modell said, raising his voice, and jabbing the air with his right index finger. ''He's a man's man. He was innocent. And I knew it the moment I heard the report. He's not capable of murder. I testified for him because he had no business in jail. It was just a chance for some prosecutors to get on Court TV.''

Ozzie Newsome, who was a Browns' tight end and executive and is now the Ravens' vice president of player personnel, said Modell's relationship with Lewis echoed how he has historically treated his players. ''It's no different than the one he had with Jim Brown or Kevin Mack or Bernie Kosar or myself,'' he said. ''Bam Morris, he gave him two or three chances.''

While the Ravens' defense can be astonishing, their offense is mediocre. It suffered a five-game, midseason meltdown, when it scored no offensive touchdowns, yet it emerged with two victories. ''The greatest accomplishment of Brian Billick's year was to pull two wins out of that dust bowl,'' Modell said.

Modell insisted that this Ravens team is better than his best club, the 1964 Browns, which were led by the nonpareil fullback Jim Brown.

''We didn't have the depth that we have now,'' Modell said. ''And we had some great teams in the 80's, but couldn't get over the hump.''

The Browns lost the 1986, 1987 and 1989 A.F.C. title games to Denver.

Eventually, the success in Cleveland ebbed -- even if the fan support did not -- and the debt that was sinking the team led to Modell's stealthily-negotiated departure. But it brought an N.F.L. team back to Baltimore, 12 years after the Colts stole away in moving vans in the middle of the night for Indianapolis.

Without a trace of irony, Modell credits his emotional departure from Cleveland, and the construction of PSINet Stadium, with launching the new generation of stadiums in the N.F.L. Critics would say that Modell taught other teams how to best induce cities and states to pay for new sports palaces.

''What I did was an eye-opener,'' he said, pointing to how new stadiums in Cincinnati, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, Denver, Foxboro, Mass., and, of course, Cleveland, have been or are being built because he moved.

Whatever time Modell has to build a legacy in addition to his controversial departure from Cleveland is short. Last year, he sold 49 percent of the team to a Maryland businessman named Steve Bisciotti, for $275 million. Bisciotti has an option to buy the rest in 2004 for $325 million.

''I could've gotten more, maybe $750 million, but he was the only one who agreed to the four-year period for my psychological and emotional meltdown,'' Modell said. The first payment helped him pay off debts and increase player spending. The next one will make his family rich.

''I didn't get into football to make a big score,'' he said. ''I couldn't care less about money, except for the security of my family.''